Article
Coptic Church
Creed
Egypt
Identity
Middle East
11 min read

God in the garbage: Egypt's unlikely megachurch

Cairo's Church of the Zabballeen is the largest Church, and one of the most unusual in the Middle East. Graham Tomlin tells its story and that of the remarkable priest who inspired it.

Graham is the Director of the Centre for Cultural Witness and a former Bishop of Kensington.

a view from the bottom of a huge cave to the sky, up row upon row of seating tiers.

To drive through Iz-Zurrayyeb, a poor area on the outskirts of Cairo is to enter a maelstrom of noise, garbage, dust and dirt. At first glance, it looks a grim place to live. There is rubbish everywhere. Cans, plastic bottles, cardboard, wood, rags, tins. Much of the refuse of the city of Cairo – about 3000 tons every day - ends up here.  

Yet the most surprising thing is what you find when you reach the heart of this community, one of the poorest in Egypt – an enormous 20,000 seater Church, the largest church in the Middle East – built into a cave in a sheer rock face.  

The story of this community goes back to the 1940s, when groups of Coptic Christian rural dwellers from Upper Egypt started migrating to the city of Cairo when life on their land became more and more difficult. These immigrants initially continued pig-farming, buying the city’s waste to feed their pigs, until they found a more lucrative way to live: by collecting the waste of the city’s residents, sorting it carefully and salvaging things of value to be sold. Feeding waste to their pigs and processing the pork to sell to the Christian population of Cairo also brought in some much-needed income.

Around 1970, some of the Zabballeen (or ‘garbage collectors’) as they were called, were evicted from the parts of Cairo where they were scattered, and moved together to an abandoned quarry on the outskirts of the city. As a result, they settled in Iz-Zurrayyeb, under the cliffs of Mokattam mountain and started establishing what is sometimes called Garbage City. They built a shanty-town there, with rudimentary dwellings, keeping pigs and eking out a living recycling refuse.  

The Zabballeen recycle about 80% of the waste they collect, an astonishing result when you consider most western cities which struggle to reach 25%.  It is a remarkably efficient system. At night the men (mostly) go out into the city streets, collecting as much garbage as they can. Each family co-operative has a particular area of the city where they are entitled to collect waste.  

There is some competition to get the wealthier areas – as is true anywhere in the world, rich people’s garbage offers better pickings than those of the poorer areas. Rather than being paid to collect the waste, the Zabballeen pay a fee to the Wahiya, a group of Muslim migrants to Cairo who arrived before the Christian Zabballeen, and who own the rights to much of city’s the garbage. 

They then take it back to their neighbourhood, packed tightly into large parcels, tied together with rope, precariously perched on the top of motorised bikes, carts or lorries. The rubbish is then deposited in the front entrance yard of the house, and sorted, usually by the women and young girls.  

The sorting is fiercely well-organised. Cans, plastic bottles, cardboard, food waste are all separated. The food waste is fed to the pigs (the Zabballeen, being almost entirely Christians, are happy to keep pigs, unlike their Muslim neighbours). Cans and bottles are packed tightly together by locally made crushing machines into neat, easily transported bales to be sold to firms that can reuse the material. Rags and paper are put aside for reuse in local craft production. Some within the community reprocess waste and produce sellable items themselves - especially in the plastics recycling business - running big recycling units, producing coat hangers, plastic bags and other goods.  

You would have thought the government might have been delighted at a system of waste disposal with these spectacular recycling results. Yet the city authorities seem to make life hard for the Zabballeen at every point. They used to carry the rubbish back to the neighbourhood by donkey and cart, but the authorities thought these were unsightly, didn’t project a modern image of the city and left donkey poo on the streets, so in the late 1980s, banned them.  

The Zabballeen were compelled to sell what land they still owned, or take out loans to small lorries and motorised trucks to ferry the waste instead. The problem is that the streets of Garbage City, running between the high blocks of flats that the residents live in, are too narrow. They were built for donkeys and carts, and so at rush hour, the place becomes like a parking lot, a nightmare of honking horns, vehicles inching slowly past each other with millimetres to spare on either side. 

Then there was swine flu. When the pandemic hit the world in 2009, despite the fact that no pig in Egypt ever caught the disease, the government ordered every pig in the country to be slaughtered. This was a disaster for the Zabballeen. Their whole carefully crafted system for dealing with garbage depended on pigs eating the food waste. They could no longer bring the waste back to the city as the rotting food would make the place unbearable. As a result, rubbish began to pile up in the streets of Cairo until the Zabballeen were able to restore their stock of pigs and start again.   

The Zabballeen’s way of life is threatened even now. In 2003, the Egyptian government entered into multi-million dollar contracts with international companies to collect Cairo’s waste, presumably because they would do it in a tidier and less obtrusive way, despite the fact that these companies are only required to recycle 20% of the waste - the remaining 80% gets dumped into landfills. Many Cairo residents still prefer the old system run by the Zabballeen, as the new companies charge them more, and fail to offer the personalised door-to-door collection that the Zabballeen did.  

In the 1960s, alcoholism, violence and drug use were rife in Iz-Zurrayyeb, as in many areas of extreme poverty across the world. Yet in the early 1970s, something began to stir.   

Ferahat Ibrahim was a young Christian printer living in Cairo, a passionate evangelist, part of an independent Coptic group that ministered among the poor of Egypt. He got to know Qidees, the man who collected rubbish in the neighbourhood where he lived, and spoke to him about faith in Jesus Christ. Qidees urged him to come to speak to his family and friends in the community at Mokattam mountain.  

Reluctantly, Ferahat agreed to do so. One day, while praying there, a storm blew up, and from among the mass of paper swirling in the wind, a single leaf torn from a book drifted from one of the piles of rubbish to land at his feet. It was a page from the Bible in Arabic – Acts chapter 18, to be exact. Picking it up, he read some words originally addressed by God to St Paul: “Do not be afraid; keep on speaking, do not be silent. For I am with you, and no one is going to attack and harm you, because I have many people in this city.” 

Taking this as a divine calling, he began to go from house to house, preaching a simple message that  God loved everyone without exception - including garbage collectors, the possibility of a new beginning and a call for people to repent, to change their ways in response to the love of God revealed in Jesus. Although he was not ordained, Ferahat never questioned the Coptic Orthodox baptism of these Christians, though recognised that in many cases their faith was no more than nominal and needed reviving. He would pray for people’s healing, or where he suspected something darker at work, would engage in the exorcism of evil spirits. Gradually, more and more people began to meet, looking for places to gather. 

Being Coptic Orthodox by origin, as the church grew, they decided they wanted a priest, but not just any priest. They wanted Ferahat. So in 1978, with the support of the Coptic Pope Shenouda, he became Abuna Sima’an - an ordained priest of the Orthodox Church. He also began to recruit others from within the community as fellow workers in this fast-growing church. He remained ministering among the Zabballeen until he died just last year, in October 2023. 40,000 people turned up for his funeral. 

Gradually, more and more people joined the fledgling church. Over time the whole neighbourhood changed. As drug and alcohol use diminished, money was freed up to be spent on healthcare and strengthening family life, education and a thriving children's centre. One of the first buildings that went up was a new Church to meet in. Inspired by the sight of a proper solid building among their flimsy dwellings, shacks and tents were replaced with brick-built apartment blocks that enabled the sorting to happen on the ground floor while families lived in cleaner apartments above.  

The community persuaded the government to connect water, electricity and sewage facilities. Fr Sima’an’s wife Souad Hanna started a school that has in time become a launchpad for further teachers in the area. A centre began to provide for people with disabilities, rather than leaving them begging on the streets.  

Sorting rubbish with no gloves leads to regular bouts of tetanus, and rates of sickness in the city are high. Nothing if not inventive, they built their own hospital. Pooling money raised from their work, and with the aid of a Finnish foundation, they built a state-of-the-art facility. Unlike the streets of the neighbourhood, the hospital is clean, modern, efficient and is as good as hospitals you’d find in any modern city. 

The rocky area in which they live contains a number of caves. As the church building became too small, some of these began to be used as meeting places for worship. One cave filled with large rocks was painstakingly cleared, and hollowed out further by the residents to provide a 5000 seat auditorium for public worship. As more and more people came to church, even this was just not big enough, so they started to work on proper seating in another cave. This one now has seating for 20,000 people. It is the largest church building in the middle east. 

Unlike most megachurches of this size, it is not Pentecostal but Coptic. The ancient Coptic church in Egypt, which claims its origin in St Mark’s visit to Egypt to preach the gospel after the Resurrection of Jesus, went through a revival in the 1960s which still carries on today. Monasteries which had been reduced to a few old monks living an austere life in ramshackle monastic houses, much like many such communities in the west today, suddenly found young men applying to be members of these ancient communities, many of which go back to the fourth century.  

The walls of the Zabballeen cave churches have lovingly sculpted reliefs of biblical stories, usually relating to the need for repentance, or Jesus’ miracles relating to the poor – healing blind men, the paralysed or the woman whose period would never stop.  

The streets of the neighbourhood are festooned with posters of Jesus, the Virgin Mary, the Coptic Pope Tawadros, and Abuna Sima’an (the unlikely equivalent is an English low-income area festooned with pictures of the local vicar!). The Coptic community in Egypt has been through troubled times. In the mid-2010s, a wave of bombings by Islamic fundamentalist groups killed and injured many Christians. 5% of the population of Egypt are Christian, yet the Zabballeen wear their faith on their sleeves. Their Christianity is not hidden. It is out on display. Presumably because it makes the difference between hope and despair.  

In an election year in the UK, political parties will offer their solutions for urban regeneration, and how to address areas where levels of crime, alcohol and drug abuse and the related mental health issues are rife. The story of the Zabballeen doesn't provide easy answers but it does suggest that there is a deeply spiritual dimension to these problems and that a revival of the faith that western culture has gradually been shedding for the last few hundred years might actually be a key to community transformation.  

When people have a bigger reason to live, something deeper than just getting richer, something that gives them a purpose for building family life, investing in healthcare, education and the things that build good community, then things begin to change. Deep transformation of this kind needs a transcendent purpose, not just social programmes dreamed up by politicians. 

We hear much these days about the demise of the church in the Middle East. And much of that is true – in many places, the Christian church has been harried down to much smaller numbers through the pressure of intimidation and the possibility of emigration. Yet that’s not the whole story. Here is a church thriving in the most poverty-stricken and unlikely of circumstances. 

In the west we tend to think of Christianity as a western religion and one for the respectable and relatively well-off.  The story of the Zabballeen tells a very different story, one that is much more representative of the church across the world. Dynamic Christianity thrives not in places where people have everything they need, but in places where they know they need help. Here is Christianity in the raw, thriving among people who have few possessions and who seem to be, in language that St Paul used to describe himself ‘the scum of the earth’.  

Their story is a powerful reminder of the ingenuity of locally based initiatives rather than corporate imposed solutions. It also says something about the transforming power of Christianity in places of great poverty and need. Walk around areas of desperate poverty in western cities and you often find people beaten down by life. Despair hangs in the air when a community struggles with problems of debt, alcohol and drug abuse.  

There is very little of that on Mokattam mountain. There is an energy, vibrancy and purpose about the place, despite the grim living conditions. A friend who lived for a number of years in Garbage City tells me he loved living there because of the warmth of the friendships and the spirit of the place. That may be partly due to the sheer industry and ingenuity of these people, but not just that. It seems to rise up from a faith that gives hope and purpose in a place where you’d least expect to find it.  

  

Article
Church and state
Culture
Freedom of Belief
War & peace
7 min read

Nigerians plead for an end to rampant murder

So-called ‘grazing conflicts’ need to be treated as a real humanitarian crisis

K.C. Nwajei is a freelance journalist based in Nigeria. 

Small huts in a crowded refugee camp.
Displaced villagers shelter in refugee camps in Benue State.
Open Doors.

 

In the state of Benue in the North Central region of Nigeria, life has become short and brutish, as mothers bury their husbands and children in an endless grief pervading Nigeria’s Middle Belt region. 

In a region where women and families once tilled the soil for sustenance as children played freely on farmlands, an unrelenting nightmare now unfolds with worrisome and haunting regularity. 

Vicious and armed herdsmen, cloaked in impunity, have turned many villages and communities in the area into killing fields. They leave behind mass graves, charred houses, and shattered lives. 

As the world watches in silence, cries from the bloodied farmlands, a steady but unabated genocide unfolds, bringing in its wake ashes of burned houses and orphans, the human cost of Nigeria’s silent killings. This is the sad reality of our times. 

Many human rights groups and people of conscience say this is no longer a local conflict over grazing routes but a serious humanitarian crisis—the agony of abandoned lives in Nigeria’s killing fields crying out for justice and urgent, pragmatic international intervention before the region is wiped off the map. 

The most recent of these gory tales is the Yelewata Massacre in the Guma Local Government Area of Benue state. Reports have it that more than 200 innocent, vulnerable and unsuspecting persons—children and elderly from 47 families—were killed by suspected herdsmen on June 13 and 14. 

In a shocking revelation by the Nigeria’s National Bureau of Statistics, 614,937 people were killed in the country in the past year. According to a local newspaper report (Daily Trust, June 22), the death toll figure is 10 times more than in war-torn Russia and Ukraine, which stands at 67,000. 

A victim of the mayhem, Janet Erdoo Terhemba, recounted her ordeal, in the news reports of the This Day newspaper. 

“I wasn’t around when it happened. At first, I was told my uncle was missing. Later, they said they found my father and stepmother. But my uncle and others, including a toddler, were burnt beyond recognition. They were butchered before they were set ablaze. My uncle was butchered—his wife too. In total, I lost eight people in one night … they were killed.” 

Ajim Doowuese is an internally displaced person from Yelwata. “All my children were burnt to death,” she said while sobbing. “Now I am childless.” 

David Tarku recounts this: “I traveled out of town and returned late in the night. Suddenly, the herdsmen attacked. I started running with my family, but my cousins were not lucky. They were killed.” 

These massacres have provoked reactions from Christian leaders, government, human rights groups, and well-meaning Nigerians, calling for decisive government actions. Pope Leo XIV, in his first official statement regarding the crisis in Nigeria, described it as “a terrible massacre in which mostly displaced civilians were murdered with extreme cruelty.” The pontiff offered prayers for security, justice, and peace for rural Christian communities he described as “relentless victims of violence.” 

The Rt. Rev. Dr. N.N. Inyom Bishop Emeritus of the Diocese of Markurdi, confirmed the story, while emphasizing that this is a “genocidal attack targeted at predominantly Christian communities.” 

Inyom has been a member of the Benue State Security Council through the past two administrations, and is a specialist in conflict and peace studies. “By any stretch of imagination … this is not a conflict,” he said. “It is pure genocide. … These are purely activities of terrorists to take the land of the communities. I have documents to support what I am saying, and pictures and names of the families and people killed in the Yelewata community.” 

“We have been living with this crisis over the years,” he added. “The Yelewata catastrophe is unimaginable.” 

“Benue state has 23 Local Government Areas, and about 17 are completely devastated. Over 1.5 million (mostly women and children) villagers are living in Internally Displaced Camps in the state. 

“Before my retirement, I had six archdeaconries. Out of these six, four have been sacked by the invading terrorists,” the bishop said. 

To buttress his claim, the bishop presented a list of the names and families he says have been killed during the Yelewata crisis. 

He challenged church leaders, irrespective of denomination, to speak up. “If the Pope could speak from the far-away Vatican, what happened to our local leaders? Let the church not just busy or bury itself in ‘spiritual deliverance.’ We need physical deliverance for our people who are being killed. I read a book on Rwandan crisis where the United Nations was asking, ‘Where was the Church before the escalation of the Rwandan crisis?’ Let the Church in Nigeria arise and let the leaders unite and save these communities.” 

He challenged the government to prioritize its duty of ensuring the security of lives of their citizens. “Government is not just about winning elections. They are looking at 2027 general elections. Meanwhile, people are being killed in 2025. Government must stop playing politics with the lives of its citizens.” 

“The greatest problem, he said, is that over time, government has not summoned the political will to implement the recommendation of the Peace and Reconciliation Commission. 

He called on the federal government to set up a Commission of Enquiry on this recurring crisis. 

Bishop Inyom called on the international community to intervene: “This is a Macedonian call. The international communities must speak up because a serious humanitarian crisis is looming.” 

Meanwhile, Amnesty International has been documenting the alarming escalation of attacks across Benue, where gunmen hold sway over the territories. 

Some prominent traditional rulers and Christian leaders have continued to express frustrations. 

In a strongly worded statement shared on X .com, Apostle Johnson Suleiman described the killings as evil, barbaric, and a mayhem. 

At a town-hall meeting with Nigeria’s President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, professor James Ortese Iorzua Ayatse expressed his alarm: 

“We do have grave concern about the misinformation and misrepresentation regarding the security crisis in Benue State. It is not herders-farmers clashes, it is not communal clashes, it is not reprisal attacks or skirmishes. It is such misinformation that has led to suggestions such as “remain tolerant, negotiate for peace, learn to live with your neighbour. 

“Your Excellency, what we are dealing with in Benue is a calculated, well-planned, full-scale genocidal invasion of land-grabbing campaign by herder terrorists and bandits which has been on for decades, and it is worsening every year. 

“Wrong diagnosis will always lead to wrong treatment. So we are dealing with something far more sinister than we think about. It is not learning to live with our neighbors. It is dealing with the war.” 

The leader of North Central Peace Advocates, Frank Utor, in a This Day newspaper report, wrote that the killers are well-trained members and affiliates of international terror groups with the mission to levy war against the indigenous communities of Benue, Plateau, and other parts of North Central. “The killers do not rear cattle, they do not engage in any known pastoral activities,” he said. 

Several media outlets have quoted elder statesmen in the communities expressing concerns about what some of them described as the “genocidal activities” of the criminal herdsmen. Some have argued and lamented that governments have failed to live up to their constitutional responsibility of protecting lives. 

The media, particularly social media, are awash with news berating the political elites in the state for failing to present a united, formidable, and common front to tackle the gruesome serial murders and carnage perpetuated by these criminal armed men. 

At a recent forum during the presentation of a posthumous award to Late Chief Raymond Alegho Dokpesi, a media mogul and founder of African Independent Television, the Rev. Father George Ehusani, a prominent Catholic priest and civil rights activist, said: 

“A lot of the clashes in Benue state are not clashes between two people. People are in their farms and 100 people in motorcycles with AK-47 riffles invade their village, sack them, and kill many. That is not ‘two fighting.’ That is one group of people going to kill people and sack them from their villages. 

“If AIT [a TV news channel] reports the news as “Clash over land in Benue state,” that would not be correct. That would be a lie.” The fact that we should communicate with gentleness does not mean we should tell lies.” 

According to monitored media reports, less than 72 hours after the mayhem, a combined force of Nigeria’s military and police chiefs launched a joint, cross-border manhunt for the gunmen who killed around 200 villagers in Yelewata on the night of June 13. 

Gen. Christopher Musa, the chief of defense, and Kayode Egbetokun, inspector-general of police, arrived in Markudi on June 16 to coordinate the operation. After assessing the carnage, Musa vowed to take the battle to the terrorists by changing the military’s strategy to fit the situation on ground. 

President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, who had previously condemned the violence in Benue state, had also directed security chiefs to implement his earlier directive to bring peace and security to the state. 

Following his visit to Benue on June 18, President Tinubu directed the Benue State Governor, the Rev. Hyacinth Iormem Alia, to set up an all-inclusive peace committee for the resolution of contentious issues that have rendered past efforts fruitless. 

In response, HURIWA, a human rights group, accused the Governor of showing what it describes as “aloofness to the gravity of the situation of mass slaughter of his people—women and children—by the terrorists masquerading as herders.”

This article first appeared in Livingchurch.org. Reproduced with permission. 

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